So, what’s a “food desert?” That’s the latest term used by the terribly aware to describe, well, exactly what? I know what it means in Chicago: “The City of Chicago broadly defines food desert residents as all Chicagoans living in a census block located more than a mile from a retail food establishment licensee with a business location larger than 10,000 square feet,” says a 2011 ordinance, according to the city’s website.

Well, that’s as good a definition as any. In Rockford, that would mean a significant percentage of Rockfordians, Loves Parkers and Machesnians are “food desert residents.” Is there a supermarket within a mile of your house? Most likely there isn’t. And if you live in Davis Junction, Stillman Valley, Capron or numerous other small villages where the local Royal Blue closed down in recent decades, you, too, are food desert residents.

What? You didn’t know that? I didn’t think so. The term has no meaning when attached to the modern mobile, American culture. I’m sure the residents of the newish subdivisions of Davis Junction live there happily; they drive to Byron or Rockford to get groceries and everything else. Do Rural Oaks residents now think they live in a food desert because Schnucks closed an underperforming store where too few people were buying big orders? I doubt it.

In Rockford, the “food desert” term is thrown about with increasing regularity, by liberal activists and reverends and by city officials — all people who don’t have to meet payrolls in the commercial, dog-eat-dog economy.

Is the West State Street corridor a “food desert?” Well, there’s no legitimate grocery store on the street, that’s true. Yet, Aldi is at Central Avenue and Auburn Street; Wal-Mart is at Central and Riverside Boulevard, Schnucks is in the Rockton Avenue Centre, (that’s where we buy most of our groceries), Sav-A-Lot is in North Towne, Chiquita Food Market is on South Main Street south of Montague Street, and Guanajuato Carnicería is on Marchesano Drive next to Roma Bakery.

Is the Midtown area a food desert? There’s a fairly new well-stocked Schnucks just down Charles Street and a Gray’s Foods on Broadway. That seems to handle the market.

Ald. Linda McNeely, D-13th, who represents the West State area, is not satisfied with the city-backed attempt to locate a Sav-a-Lot store on West State. She wants a Meijer or Woodman’s, as if you can call up the mayor and order one.

Page 2 of 2 - Well, good luck with that. Her constituents are already shopping at Woodman’s, Valli and Schnucks. When Meijer opens they will shop there, too. Nearly everyone has access to transportation, either by car or by bus.

The grocery business has become more concentrated and regionalized since the 1940s, when most people lived a short walk from the corner grocer. Food super centers serve people from miles around. Profit margins are tiny, maybe one to two percent.

But with all that said, we’d have more and better supermarkets if we didn’t spend one-third of our food budgets at greasy fast food joints and chain restaurants that keep their pre-made entrees in the monster freezer in back.

You want to talk about food deserts? How about starting at Five McGuys Colossal Shake ‘n’ Burger?

We can’t always get what we want. I’ve been asking shopping center tycoon Sunil Puri for a Costco for a decade. People want a Whole Foods Market and a Trader Joe’s.

It’s important that we stop throwing around useless buzz phrases and start talking about reality in the real world where people don’t expect businesses to be charities, and where the nonprofit, religious and government sectors work to create stable, low-crime neighborhoods with intact families where businesses want to invest.